Berzerk (Stern Electronics, 1980) was one of the first video games to have voice synthesis, which it put to good use. It compels passersby to play by saying, "Coin detected in pocket"; spurs its computerized cohorts to victory with, "Stop the humanoid. Stop the intruder"; expresses its consternation with the player's success by saying, "The humanoid must not escape", and, most famously, insults fleeing players with, "Chicken. Fight like a robot."

Also noteworthy for being one of the first video games that afforded the player non-linear ways of achieving goals. The AI robots could be goaded into shooting each other, walking into deadly walls or otherwise killing themselves without the player firing a shot.

Berzerk was even blamed for two deaths. Two teenagers in separate arcades had heart attacks after achieving high scores, causing Moral Guardians to wonder whether arcade video games were too much excitement for people to handle. Even in 1980, most people didn't take them seriously.

The game received a sequel, Frenzy (1982), which introduces two styles of robots (skeletons and tanks, who act the same, but the skeletons are slightly harder to hit from above or below), a temporarily-destroyable Evil Otto, destructible and reflective walls, and "Special" rooms with some feature that adds a twist to the normal game (the Robot Factory constantly sends out new robots, shooting the Power Plant immobilizes all robots in the room, shooting the Central Computer causes all robots in the room to go crazy and destroy each other, and Big Otto gets very very angry if you destroy Evil Otto in his chamber).

The player can use the other robots to kill each other and make Evil Otto smash the robots. They're slightly smarter in Frenzy (they won't walk into each other, for example), but not by much.

In the Atari 2600 version, the robots couldn't walk into each other (due to a one-robot-per-scanline technical limitation), but were much more likely to walk into walls.

Attract Mode: Coin detected in pocket! It was one of the first games in the market to be equipped with a speech synthesizer chip, and it isn't afraid to use the fact to attract players!

Big Monster Cute Name: Evil Otto... though the big monster himself was cute too, being rendered as a smiley face. Originally, this was a temporary graphic until the programmer could think of something cool to use. The idea of players running away from something so cute and insipid was funny to the programmer. So Evil Otto stayed a happy face.

Deadly Walls: The walls don't discriminate between player and robot; it is possible to get a robot to destroy itself by walking into a wall. Averted in Frenzy.

The Dreaded: Even the robots, who normally are after your blood, are afraid of Evil Otto, who is capable of killing them indiscriminately, and as such will drone out "Intruder alert! Intruder alert!" when he shows up.

Invincible Minor Minion: Evil Otto cannot be destroyed, but his appearance forces the player to exit the room. In Frenzy, Otto can be destroyed (it takes three hits); however, each such destruction will result in a new Otto spawning immediately thereafter, and moving faster than the previous one. (More than 3 Otto kills on one level can be said to constitute a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the player who accomplishes that.)

Optionally averted in the Atari 2600 version, one-third of the game variations have no Evil Otto, and one-third feature a killable Otto (he's worth no points, and he respawns after a few seconds). The remaining variations feature invincible Otto like his arcade counterpart.

Killer Robot: Every enemy that isn't Evil Otto, though in Frenzy, some look like skeletons instead of robots.

Mood Dissonance: Evil Otto is out to murder you, and will happily destroy any robots that happen to be in his way. He's also a bouncing smiley face.

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